M ark H agger . Norman Rule in Normandy, 911–1144

Normandy casts a long shadow in Anglophone historiography. From the research of Francis Palgrave and Thomas Stapleton to more recent historians Charles Homer Haskins, David Douglas, Marjorie Chibnall, and David Bates, the history of the homeland of England’s conquerors has been the subject of intensive study. The latest in this long line is Mark Hagger, who bravely offers a synthesis of all that has gone before on a much broader timescale than David Bates’s Normandy before 1066 (1982). Deliberately avoiding theoretical concepts and questions in favor of the practicalities of his topics (xvii), Hagger brings to the study his deep knowledge of the primary sources and in particular the diplomas, writs, and charters produced in Normandy and England in this period. It is this grasp of practicalities that is the strength of Norman Rule in Normandy, 911–1144. The study is divided into two parts: the first is broadly an analytical narrative, and the second is a series of thematic explorations, with an introduction that reviews the main narrative and documentary sources. Part 1 has the collective subtitle “Building the Duchy,” with chapters 1–3 covering the periods 911–996, 996–1087, and 1087–1144, and chapters 4 and 5 reviewing, respectively, the duke’s relationship with the church and the way he was portrayed within texts. It presents a nuanced account of the development of Normandy. Ducal power was extended “in fits and starts” (184) from Rollo’s settlement in Rouen (ca. 911) until King Henry I finally secured Verneuil-sur-Avre around 1120, illustrated in maps of the ducal demesne across the period. With an eye to practicalities, Hagger points out that individual lords needed to see the benefit of accepting the duke’s power as a means of protecting the lands they held. He also describes how the dukes’ promotion of Christianity was essential to their success, first by bringing the Viking settlers into the existing community and then by rebuilding the institutions of the Norman church. On the question of the dukes’ relationships with the kings of France, Hagger is able to deploy his expertise on documentary sources, examining the use of titles in Norman narratives and documents and describing how historians have been influenced by surviving English acts from 1066 onward, described in a memorable phrase as the “roar of the royal writing office” (253).

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